


In The Dark

by Bofur1



Series: BofurGlóinNori [6]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, Cave-In, Darkness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Fear of Death, Five Days, Gen, Isolation, Major Character Injury, Rescue Missions, Storytelling, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Bofur1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>This is to be his fate, then? He’s survived a journey across the world, a Dragon, a Battle of Five Armies, only to die in a mine collapse. If anything, Bofur is glad that he is the first of his family to go.<em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [in_a_blog_in_the_ground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_blog_in_the_ground/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gifts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089187) by [in_a_blog_in_the_ground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_blog_in_the_ground/pseuds/in_a_blog_in_the_ground). 



> Based off this clip of in_a_blog_in_the_ground's story _Gifts _:__
> 
>  
> 
> _"Bofur shivered as he remembered the rocks crashing around him, the screams, the silence. Smaug’s depredations had weakened the mines under the Mountain, and Bofur had not set foot in them since the collapse a few years after the Dwarves had reclaimed their home. As a new Lord, he did not have to go, but he had wanted to help, so he volunteered to lead the team. It was nearly five days before they found him."_  
> 

**DAY ONE**

_Where...where am I...?_

Whimpering quietly, Bofur tries to sit up but finds himself pinned on his back. Blinking dust from his long lashes, he stares around with wide eyes. He can see nothing; the darkness swathes him.

_Lantern..._

Blindly reaching out for said light source, Bofur hisses in pain when shards of hot glass scald his skin. His lantern is broken; he will remain here in the dark. But how has he gotten here?

Memory eventually seeps into Bofur’s bruised head, causing him to gasp and subsequently choke at a sudden twist of pain in his chest.

Rumbling and creaking as cart tracks wobbled. The promises of the stone’s stability breaking as easily as the ground beneath him. His own cries, pounded out of him with multiple blows to his throat and chest and gut. The hiss of dust crowding in around him, the haze of agony stealing all conscious thought...

And now he’s awake again. Alone. In the dark.

 

**DAY TWO**

Bofur can only tell the hour by the ache of his neglected stomach. He hasn’t eaten in ages and his canteen has bounced away somewhere, never to be found again. Bofur’s throat has constricted with dust, making him unable to call for help. All he can do is whimper. Whimper and think of how hungry and thirsty he is.

Hunger and thirst reminds him of Bombur. Has he heard the news? Is he worrying yet? Worrying brings Bofur to Bifur. His cousin was part of his team, but where is he now? Have they fished him and the others out of the rubble? And when will he, Bofur, be found? Will he be found at all?

In the meantime, trying to help the rescuers along, Bofur works at moving the rock pile atop of him. Carefully he feels around before wrapping his fingers around different stones and pulling them out. The wreckage shifts and groans, settling down around him.

Then Bofur makes a wrong move. He is pulling at what feels like a metal beam when it suddenly bends and skids forward, the sharp end stabbing at his solar plexus. _Pain!_

Panicked, the Dwarf thrashes, causing the metal to snap up and slam him in the throat. Through the prickle of even deeper nothingness approaching, Bofur can feel blood trailing down the curve of his neck.

 

**DAY THREE**

_Air...I need air..._

Bofur’s lungs are dimming. Every ragged breath burns down his windpipe and then burns out again in a harsh, hiccupping sob.

He is so alone here...he needs his brother and his cousin—he needs to touch them, run his hands through their hair. For neither the first nor last time Bofur presses icy, trembling hands to his face, reminding himself what flesh and hair feel like.

His limbs have gone numb and cold for lack of movement. The piece of metal dances around his throat like a sword tip and he dare not move it away for fear of bringing whatever is behind it down on him.

By this time, Bofur muses hazily, Bifur, Bombur, and the others have undoubtedly heard of the collapse. When Bofur closes his eyes, he can imagine Bombur wringing his hands and Bifur pacing. He can see Nori there also, shoving his way into the team of workers while cursing in all the foreign tongues he’s learned. Bofur hates himself for doing this to them.

_I’m sorry...I’m so sorry..._

 

**DAY FOUR**

Panic is pounding in Bofur’s chest as adrenaline he can’t release. His head spins with terror, hunger, thirst, and blood loss. His breath—if it can still be called ‘breath’—is short, slipping uselessly to and from his parched lips. The Dwarf’s shivering grows violent, clacking his teeth together.

Hallucinations swell in the dark: flashes of light, darting shadows, whispers that are either from his own mouth or from hidden adversaries. Rationality has fled, taking with it comprehension of his surroundings. The miner can’t focus, can barely even form full thoughts.

_So cold..._

_Can’t breathe..._

_Spare me..._

He can feel his heart crawling more slowly—he’s dying. The air supply is dying with him, but he can’t sweat. Bofur is thankful for this; he’s cold enough as it is without the slick of perspiration. This is to be his fate, then? He’s survived a journey across the world, a Dragon, a Battle of Five Armies, only to die in a mine collapse. If anything, Bofur is glad that he is the first of his family to go.

 

**DAY FIVE**

Bombur hasn’t lifted his head out of his hands for hours. Nori suspects he’s finally fallen asleep after these seemingly endless days. Bifur, on the other hand, is tireless. He paces in front of the mine’s entrance, making obscene gestures in iglishmêk and snarling unintelligible Khuzdûl. He would much rather be helping the rescue team inside but that option was evicted after he viciously attacked someone who had the nerve to suggest Bofur’s demise.

Currently Nori is sitting on a long rock slab, sandwiched between his brothers, silently smoking his pipe. The taste of it is abnormally sharp and acrid, probably because his usual smoking partner is trapped in the mine.

Nori remembers a particular night in the wilderness of Mirkwood. He was dozing in a niche when he sensed someone edging up from behind. He rolled over with knife poised to stab whatever nemesis was stalking him, but only found the colorless, wide-eyed face of his friend.

“What’re you doin’, sneakin’ up on me like that?” Nori demanded as he sheathed his knife.

“I can’t sleep,” Bofur whispered hoarsely. “I—I hate this place. It’s just so dark!”

Nori rolled his eyes, not quite taking him seriously. “You’re a miner. You’ve gone into dozens of caves darker than this. Besides,” he gestured upward toward the trees, “we’ve got the moon, haven’t we? Or at least some of it; hard to see all of it through the trees.”

“B-But it all seems fake, like a—a cover,” his friend gasped out. “Anythin’ can hide here!”

Nori’s brows creased. “You’re not makin’ sense.”

Bofur whimpered. “I used t’ be afraid o’ cluttered noises. That’s what has scared me fer this entire Quest until we came here. Now I’m afraid o’ _silence_!”

Nori found his stomach tangling in knots as he perceived the haunted gleam of his friend’s eyes. Pursing his lips, he wound an arm around Bofur’s shoulders and pulled him into the niche beside him. He filled the silence, reminiscing of times in Ered Luin and humming old songs until Bofur relaxed, leaned his head into the crook of Nori’s elbow, and fell asleep. Nori lay still, not wanting to jostle the Dwarf next to him by repositioning, until he abruptly shivered. Suddenly he could sense it—the weight of the quiet.

“Thanks a lot, mate,” he muttered into Bofur’s ear. “You’ve scared me now too.”

 _Is he feeling that weight now? Does he have that horrible gleam in his eyes?_ Nori wonders, drawing in a sharp breath that sends him gagging on pipe smoke. Dori and Ori each startle, but Nori waves them off before they can ask if he’s alright. Because he’s _not_ and he _won’t be_ until his friend is safe. Therefore he leaps to his feet, extinguishes and pockets his pipe, pushes his way to the foreman and demands a shovel. When the other Dwarf begins to protest that he doesn’t know the ‘proper’ way to rescue someone from a mine collapse, Nori raises himself to his full height, looming some good inches over him.

“Give. Me. A shovel. _Now_.” His voice is soft but deadly, like the easy flick of a snake’s forked tongue just before it’s about to strike. The foreman blanches.

After hours of unproductive digging and praying, Nori is starting to feel that one emotion he hates: fear. He’s afraid that it’s too late, that they will never find the body, that there is no hope for—

The end of his shovel bumps something soft, something that yields to the push and curves around it. Nori crouches down, feeling about inside for the object. Flexible leather and wool. _Oh, it can’t be..._

The hat. Nori stares at it, running his fingers over the surface before carefully setting it aside and snatching up his shovel once more. Where the hat is, Bofur’s not far away!

Sure enough, a favored mattock is found next, and then the canteen Nori gave Bofur for his birthday.

“Even in the middle of the chaos, you left a path,” Nori mutters as he crawls forward. “You’re clever, mate, very clever.” His eyes lift and he sees just before him a jumbled mass of dirt, rock, and metal track for the mine carts. Immediately he plunges his shovel into it, abandoning caution. The other diggers wince when they see his method, but make no comment.

When the cart tracks on top wobble and it’s no longer safe to use the shovel, Nori begins digging with his hands. Perhaps this is what allows him to find exactly that: a hand, flopped limply in the dirt. Nori’s breath sticks in his throat. Tossing aside a few more rocks, he sees the beginnings of a sleeve. Probing around, Nori finds two things.

  1. A birth year embroidered on the inside of the sleeve: T.A. 2798.

  2. A weakly fluttering pulse.




Nori whirls and barks at one of the others. “Get Bifur!”

 

**DAY NINE**

“When will you go back?” Nori asks quietly.

Bofur’s eyes dim and he shakes his head miserably. “I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know if I can.”

Nori nods his understanding. “Well, if you’re not workin’ in the mines, it’ll give us more time to hang out.”

Bofur sighs. “People are whisperin’. Thinkin’ we’re...” He grimaces. “...together.”

Nori rolls his eyes. “Whatever. They can sod off, go jump down a cavern.” He notices Bofur’s infinitesimal flinch and leans forward quickly with a pacifying hand stretched out. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that part.”

“It was just...so...” Bofur releases his breath in a hiss, burying his face in his hands. “I was completely separated from everyone an’ everythin’, _completely an’ thoroughly alone_.  Not ‘alone’ like I was off by meself somewhere, but like I...didn't exist! I was so alone, Nori, utterly alone in a—a burnin’ blackness an’ I’ve had nothin’ but nightmares since then!”

Nori sets his jaw as he gets to his feet. Bofur watches him with despair as he heads for the door. Leaving him. Alone. Tears come unbidden and Bofur turns over, burying his face in his pillow for privacy.

Then footsteps return, another pillow thumps down next to him, the blanket covering him lifts and Nori nudges him. “Scoot over, you’re takin’ all the room.”

Bofur looks up, blinking in surprise. “What’re ye doin’?”

“Just like Mirkwood, remember?” Nori announces. He finds that familiar position and works his arm around Bofur’s shoulders. “There, that’s better. Now, mate, have I told you about the time I went to Ithilien?”

 

 


End file.
